Columbia Glacier Retreating Fast
December 29 — Alaska's Columbia Glacier is retreating and the front of the glacier is breaking off into icebergs in Prince William Sound. (CNN.com)

Solar Weather Makes Ice Storms Seem Unimportant
December 28 — Scientists have been closely watching the current increased solar activity as the sun has ejected billions of tons of plasma towards the Earth. (Fox News.com)

Growing Fire Threat to Tropical Forests
December 27 — Researchers using NASA satellite data say that the burning threat facing tropical forests has increased because of El Niño, land clearings, and agricultural burnings. (Alex Kirby, BBC News Online)

Scientists Study Nature's Role in Destroying Ozone
December 25 — Scientists have discovered how the sun helps trigger the breakdown of low-level ozone in the Arctic and how, in turn, mercury levels increase in the snow pack. (Alexandra Witze, Dallas Morning News)

Space Agency Says Hot Sun Storms Keep Earth Aglow
December 22 — NASA and other agencies' early warning systems monitoring the sun?s current stormy season have helped power operators on Earth avoid overloads. (Maggie Fox, Reuters)

A Climatic Crystal Ball
December 21 — Columbia University?s International Research Institute for Climate Prediction looks at ocean surface temperatures for clues of the future state of the atmosphere. (John J. Goldman, Los Angeles Times)

Solving the Amazon's Climate Riddle
December 21 — Scientists believe that methane produced by South America's Amazon River wetlands has added to the 10,000 year-old increase in greenhouse gas around the globe. (Ginger Pinholster, MSNBC.com)

World Warms Again Through 2000
December 20 — The World Meteorological Organization reports that this year was the fifth or sixth warmest on record and that these temperatures are consistent with the onset of global warming. (Reuters, BBC News Online)

Rain Maps Show Air Pollution Hinders Rainfall
December 19 — NASA scientists studying tropical rainfall determined that smoke can reduce rainfall from a storm by as much as half compared to the same kind of storm over the ocean. (CNN.com, United Press International)

The Storm at the Center of Climate Science
December 19 — James Hansen?s climate research on greenhouse gases continues to be misunderstood, and he?s trying hard to change that. (Richard Monastersky, Chronicle of Higher Education)

U.S. Weather Follows Global Warming Trend
December 19 — The average temperature in the continental United States is projected to be 1.3 degrees warmer than the average over the last 106 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Kenneth Chang, New York Times)

Cold Northern Forests Face Burning Threat
December 18 — Global warming is drying out northern timber and brush, causing fires in boreal forests, according to researchers. (Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle)

Ozone Layer Over Arctic is Not Healing Quickly
December 18 — Scientists have discovered that bromine may be preventing the Arctic ozone loss from recovering, even though chlorine levels are dropping. (Greg Lefevre, CNN.com; Associated Press)

Scientists Suggest New Threat to Antarctic Ice
December 16 — New research indicates that ice streams that feed the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be slowing because of the gradually changing shape of the ice sheet over the last 10,000 years. (Reuters)

An Undersea Yellowstone?
December 14 — Scientists were stunned by the discovery in the Atlantic of the largest hydrothermal vent system ever seen. (Usha McFarling, Los Angeles Times; BBC News Online; National Public Radio)

Climate Model Shows Dual Warming Cause
December 14 — Only a combination of natural and human causes can explain the Earth's warming during the 20th century, according to a new study. Natural causes mattered more early in the century and human-induced causes in the present warming. (BBC News Online)

Antarctic Ozone Hole Closes for the Year
December 11 — Antarctica's annual ozone hole has closed for the year. Scientists expect it to take 50 years to fully recover. (Jack Williams, USATODAY.com)

2001 Hurricane Forecast
December 7 — William Gray of Colorado State University is predicting a much less active hurricane season next year, with only nine named tropical storms, five of which will become hurricanes. (Kevin Chambers, Weather.com)

Arctic Sea Ice Thins By Almost Half
December 7 — British researchers have evidence that sea ice across the Arctic has thinned by almost half in two decades. (BBC News - News.BBC.co.uk)

Fossils Nag at Carbon's Climate Role
December 7 — International researchers examining fossil records question the role of carbon dioxide as the main force driving climate variability. (BBC News - News.BBC.co.uk)

Glacier Coming Apart
December 5 — Researchers say that Alaska's Columbia Glacier is ready to disintegrate as it continues to break off more new icebergs quicker than it can accumulate new snow. (Reuters)

Ozone Hole "Set to Shrink"
December 3 — An international group of scientists is predicting that the Antarctic ozone hole will close within 50 years. (BBC News - News.BBC.co.uk)

Back to: News